Monke smart
It’s actually curious how does one arrive at the idea of using plants like that in the first place, when they are an early human or an orangutan. Probably at first, they just applied random plant matter to cover up the wound, or chewed plant matter to cool it down (it will keep moisture for longer than water). And then noticed that some plants are actually more effective at that.
I assume you meant to write whether instead of when.
So this is pure speculation, I would guess this kind of behavior will date back to the last common ancestor. Great apes and humans split somewhere between 5 and 23 million years ago. We haven’t actually found any fossils of this animal, hence the big time range. Anyway at the time of the split, neither humans or great apes existed. We have evolved alongside each other to what we are today. This makes me feel that use of medicinal plants is a learned behavior dating back millions of years.
As to the exact mechanism to learn this I would speculate that it comes for eating plants. It is very likely that the LCA was an omnivore. Say animal eats plant, weirdly animal feals better. After enough time of doing this animal connects the dots and knows a specific plant feels better. After enough generations and resulting increases in intelligence, it is not a big leap to seeing if rubbing a plant on your body makes you feel better.
This could of course come after the LCA. Convergent evolution exists so it seems safe to say convergent learning does too. Until there is evidence to the contrary. Learned behavior from the LCA seems more likely to me.
I’m not so convinced it’s from a common ancestor, tool use has been observed in a wide variety of animals ranging from birds to octopus, and that common ancestor is unlikely to have used tools. This seems more akin to that.
Given enough time, other species may evolve and perhaps teach us a thing or two about being better civilized beings.
My money is on the octopi people.
Resident Alien supports your theory.
We started episode one, got interrupted, and never finished! Ack! Thanks for the reminder!
The kids can’t act for shit
Kids always ruining everything. 😏
They don’t live long enough, sadly. If they did, they could easily be the dominant species. Many octopus species have been shown to have the intelligence of a 7 year old. Besides the fact that it’s a form of intelligence that evolved completely separate from ours (our last common ancestors didn’t have a brain), octopi only live about 3-4 years. Think about that for a moment.
Many octopus species have been shown to have the intelligence of a 7 year old
So about as smart of some former presidents. Awesome!
Besides the fact that it’s a form of intelligence that evolved completely separate from ours
Precisely what I was thinking about when I said that in jest. But seriously, they are incredible creatures!
They don’t live long enough, sadly. If they did, they could easily be the dominant species.
The problem is not how long they live but that they don’t take care of the offspring, so every octopus need to learn everything from scratch again.
